


Aaryavata

by The_Wavesinger



Category: Original Works
Genre: F/F, Fantasy, Legends, Minor Character Death, War, Worldbuilding, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 14:18:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/pseuds/The_Wavesinger
Summary: In days long past, when a king of the name of Brahmadatta ruled the kingdom of Kasi in Baranas city, there was, in the Heladvipa, a warrior Aarya who was the Queen's First and a healer Soma disciple of Jeevaka.This is the story of how they met fifteen years after the invasion of Lilavati, expanded from the old annals by an anonymous scribe.





	Aaryavata

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gileonnen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/gifts).



> The title is about five puns rolled into one, and Aarya's name is kind of an elaborate joke. I couldn't resist.
> 
> Some names/details/certain plotlines are cribbed from the Mahavamsa and twisted beyond recognition. The initial lines are in the style of the Pansiya Panas Jataka Pota and lifted almost directly from it.

In days long past, when a king of the name of Brahmadatta ruled the kingdom of Kasi in Baranas city, there was, in the Heladvipa, a warrior of the lineage of Paduma through Asama and Asama, who was under the protection of the Lord of the Butterfly Mountain, and pledged her sword to Anula the Queen in the City of Anuradha-in-Exile. And she was called Aarya by the Queen, and Aarya she became, for though she was the Queen's First and offered the land the protection of her sword and heart, she had no mother of the Sakya to name her.

And there, too, was a healer named Soma of the same lineage through Yasavi and Yashodhara, under the same protection, though of a lesser degree. She was the disciple of the Jeevaka, he who tended to Maya the Great and to Asokha of Kosala. And she left the Heladvipa for long years to learn medicine under the tutelage of Jeevaka in Jambudeepa, but on the sixteen day of the seventh month of her thirty-fifth year she set foot again in the Heladvipa, Tambapanni the Great.

But it came to pass that as she was passing through the forests of Mihintale under the aegis of the Lady of the Rock, she was waylaid by soldiers of Lilavati the Invader. And Aarya the Queen's First heard the cry of the Lady of the Rock revolting and came to the rescue of Soma disciple of Jeevaka and now healer in her own right.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

The woman appeared in front of Soma as she thought she would die by the hands of these strange soldiers, killing the soldier whose knife was at Soma's throat with a quick movement Soma didn't see, and now she's backed Soma against the trunk of an old tree, her broad back to Soma as she fights.

Soma can feel the weight of the sword at her hip. She knows how to handle it—a healer is required to protect her charges, and on occasion that requires wielding steel—but she has never drawn it in battle. She had never expected to draw it in battle, before now, for Heladvipa had never had bandits who dared the forests of Mihintale.

And yet—

 _And yet,_ Soma thinks. _I'm in the middle of battle and contemplating whether or not I should draw my sword._ But even that thought feels numb, detached, as if she's floating somewhere far, far away from the fight that's going on in front of her. The land is shuddering—the Lady is shuddering.

Soma stumbles, falls, and her palm is on the ground, listening. _Please_ , she thinks desperately, _please, please calm_. The Lady can, perhaps, sense the disturbance, the violation of her sacred lands where none even dare hunt deer.

Or so the stories say, and Soma has never been very power-strong. The music of the land is faint to her ears, but even she can sense the discord, and she sends tendrils of soothing energy as she can. For it won't matter how well her saviour can fight if the land sees them all as intruders and swallows them whole.

She sinks her whole soul into the healing, as Jeevaka had taught her. It is a new and strange feeling to be entwined with the roots of the land, for in the Jambudeepa she could but skim the surface of the old powers, but here. Here she can go deep even if the song is faint, and she sets her mind to healing.

The land bucks and twists and will not be held. Still, she soothes, not allowing her fragile grip to slip.

She's surprised when, eventually, a strong hand comes down on her shoulder, shaking her out of her trance.

“What—” She blinks, startled, and realizes she's sunk deep into healing even as she swims up and away from the song. A brown face peers up at her. Then, coming into focus, dark, sharp eyes, short curly black hair, well-fitting but muted body armour, the curve of a sword still blood-wet, and a tilt of a mouth she's almost familiar with—

“ _Aarya_?” She scrambles up, aware suddenly of how dishevelled she must appear. Aarya is dishevelled too, but since she fought off about seven or eight bandits on her own, that's a different kind of dishevelled, a dishevelled that makes something hot pulse near Soma's stomach—no. Stop, Soma, focus. She knows the arousal that comes with tapping into the land to heal it, now, and she should know better than to direct it outwards. “Ah. Sorry. I got a little lost.”

“I know.” Aarya, Aarya the Queen's First she hasn't seen in fifteen long years, and scarcely spoke with even before, smiles, and it's the kind of smile that can defeat armies even if it is worn and jagged at the edges. “I can hear the Lady singing, she's not known a healer's touch since Lilavati came.” Then, “She likes you, you know. She's telling me right now, and I could hear her cry out from a mile away when those brutes caught up to you.”

“You know I'm not strong enough to hear her, but I'll take your—” Soma stops. “Lilavati? That was fourteen years ago, and I know we didn't have god-trained healers then, but surely old Asajji, at least? Or even you, you can't heal, I know, but you can soothe her and I can't imagine she'd need much healing.” Maybe that's why the bandits came, if a healer hasn't soothed the Lady in so long.

But Aarya's face is frozen in something like shock, or grief, Soma doesn't know which, doesn't want to know which. Except she's speaking, so she's going to learn soon. “Soma. Asajji is dead, and the hurts of Mihintale go far beyond what I can heal.”

Grief claws at Soma, sudden and sharp, and oh. _Oh_. Asajji was old, yes, but she had been so sure he would have twenty years left at least. Her first teacher, gone, and she hadn't known. “ _How_?”

“Lilavati,” Aarya says grimly. “Lilavati killed all the healers, and killed anyone to whom the land spoke. It was—” Her face is set in a mask. “It happened some time ago. When she first came here.”

“I hope she _paid_. Her and every single one of her warriors. When we get to the City, or wherever they're buried, I'm going to spit on their graves myself.” It's all Soma can think to say, with Asajji's death— _death_ , how—clawing at her heart. But Aarya doesn't respond, turns away so her face is hidden in shadow. “Aarya?”

“Soma. Lilavati is still in the City.”

 

* * * *

 

The tale comes out slowly. Lilavati's invasion a mere year after Soma left, while the Queen was still new-crowned and her people still learning, and Lilavati's forces sweeping out of the North. How Anuradha had been taken, and the Queen and her First and her closes cabinet barely escaped with their lives, fleeing to Rohana to set up a government in exile and gather their strength. All while Soma had thought the invasion beaten back, while Soma had been safe in Jambudeepa learning, with little news of her homeland. And she hadn't wondered why, hadn't wondered why the letters were few until at last they stopped coming, hadn't wondered why there were no messages for her at all in the last years, hadn't even wondered why the sailors who set her ashore in a secret harbour she'd directed them to—one few knew of, one she'd gone to because it was faster than the Thota of Thirikun and closer to Anurdha—were so nervous and eager to be gone, because she'd been so happy to be home.

And now, still, Lilavati rules in the City of Anuradha.

“No,” Soma bites out. “No. I want to see the City. I'm going to see the City.” She stands up, starts walking, doesn't even remember to pick up her sack of herbs and her trunk of clothes. It's only Aarya's hand on her wrist, strong and yet gentle, which stops her.

“Soma.”

“Let go, Aarya.”

Aarya shakes her head. “No, Soma. You're not going to the City. Everyone knows of you, still, knows how you went to Jambudeepa to learn from Jeevaka. You'll be killed as soon as you're recognized.”

But the words are faint, and Soma hears them as if from far away, as if it's there's some barrier between her and Aarya preventing the noise from having meaning. “You can't stop me, Aarya. I'm going to the City, and the City will be fine. You're lying.” Of course Aarya's lying. Not maliciously, of course, she's the Queen's First and her loyalty to Hela is absolute, but she's lying for some reason or another. The City is fine and she's going to see the City.

When she tells this to Aarya, Aarya only sighs. “Soma, those bandits are warriors of Lilavati. They would never be allowed to roam in the forests of Mihintale if Anula was still ruler in the City. But,” she talks over Soma, who's opened her mouth to interrupt, “I'll take you to Anuradha. There's somewhere I need to go first, though.”

 

* * * *

 

The somewhere, it turns out, is Balana.

Soma has not been in the country for fifteen years, but she still remembers the old paths, still remembers the change in the trees that marks the way to Balana, notices how the underbrush grows sparser and the trees dwarf them no longer. There's only one place in this ring of growth (set there by Sumana himself, the old stories say) that Aarya could visit. Balana, the Lady's Rock.

The nearer they get to Balana, the tighter Aarya's face becomes. Soma is still reeling, still sure that Aarya is lying but unable to prove it, but she tries, once or twice, to talk to Aarya. Aarya won't respond, though; her one-word answers are laden with pain. She's wounded, Soma would say, if she didn't know better—

Except she doesn't know better. She doesn't know at all, doesn't remember, and she's stupid, stupid, stupid. Calling herself a healer while a charge could be injured. “Aarya, you're hurt?”

“Hmm?” Aarya raises her head, and Soma can see, now, that her eyes are glazed with pain. “No. No, I'm fine.”

“ _Aarya_.” She grabs Aarya's arm, and Aarya lets out a gasp she can't quite stifle. “You are hurt.”

Aarya pulls her arm away from Soma. “It's not that, that's just a scratch. It's—listen. Listen, for a moment.”

Not lucid, Soma realises, but Aarya is bigger and stronger than her; she needs to talk Aarya down. “Aarya, please. You're hurt, you're not yourself.”

“No. This is a scratch, and I need it beside. Just—listen. To the land. But stay with me.”

Aarya sounds desperate. It couldn't hurt to humour her, Soma thinks, because they've gone two hours without treating the wound. A little longer won't cause lasting damage. So she closes her eyes and centers herself, and sinks into the forest.

The song is faint, still (and it will never be anything but faint for her; Soma knows her own limitations), but it's not the wounded-haunting notes of earlier. It's a screech, a grating noise of a sword scraping against a stone, far away yet earsplitting, and Soma comes back to herself with a start, something that's never happened so quickly before. Something's happened, Soma thinks, something beside the invasion, if the invasion ever happened, and they're heading straight towards the place where it happened, towards where the noise comes from.

“Aarya, we should turn back—” she begins, but Aarya shakes her head.

Her face is set in the grim determination that Soma remembers she'd always possessed, the only reason the council and cabinet hadn't argued for a different First while Aarya grew (for Aarya was young, still, barely a full knight, even if she was the one to whom the land spoke clearest even then). If anything, the singleminded focus has only sharpened, to a point when Soma, looking at her, is almost frightened. “No. I need to go on.”

 

* * * *

 

By the time they come upon Balana, Aarya is pale and swaying on her feet, but every time Soma makes a move to assist her she's snapped at and pushed away. So she stops trying, because she doesn't know Aarya well enough to force her aid on her, and if she _wants_ to be overwhelmed by the land and die, she can, dammit.

But then they come into sight of Balana, and all words are swept away.

The rock is still there, jutting majestically against the sky, but around it—around it is a ring of deadened, black land, stretching maybe half a mile from the base of the rock. And the rock itself is charred and blackened, and the great cave at its foot is no longer visible, its entrance covered by a heap of fallen stone.

Aarya walks on, and Soma has no choice but to follow her, right up to the great wall of rock through dead soil, the ground crunching beneath their feet.

But Aarya ignores the screaming that she must surely hear, brushes her arm against the rock wall and leaves a glistening trail of blood (Soma should care about that, but she's too numb to, and all her training has fallen away), takes out what looks like a chisel from the pack slung on her back.

“Sit,” she tells Soma. “This might take a while.”

Soma is left with no choice but to sit, for she does not know these lands any long and can't wander them alone. And Aarya, it's painfully clear, will do what she wants, and Soma can't do anything about it. So she sits cross-legged, leans against a boulder and places her palm on the ground.

She sinks into the roots of the land almost out of habit. She's a healer, and this is what she has trained to do, so she dives into a tangle of knots so deep she can't feel any individual strand, just a mess of _angerhurtpainrage_ , and tries to soothe, but it's like trying to hold water in her hands, slipping slipping washing away, only this leaves stains instead of clearing them, and she can feel the screaming in her skull but she can't let go, because the wound is so, so deep it's impossible to reach, and she's never felt so powerless in her life—

“ _Soma_.”

Someone's pulling her to the surface, grounding her with a hand on her shoulder and a palm on her cheek, and she's surfacing, gasping, choking.

“Soma, Soma, please. Centre yourself.”

The palm, Soma realizes belatedly, is Aarya's, and so is the hand, and both are warm and pleasant even though she herself is cold, chilled right to the core of the body. Aarya's looking at her, concern etched on her face. “Soma, let it go. There's nothing you can do.”

She can't believe that, won't believe that, a thousand voices crying out for her to heal them, but when she says so to Aarya, Aarya only smiles sadly, gently. “Let me show you something.”

She's pulled up (and there's a strange relief, a lightening of a burden, when her palm is taken off the ground and her connection to the land breaks) and guided to the face of the rock Aarya had brushed with blood earlier, and Aarya covers Soma's hand gently with her own, places it on the smooth stone surface.

“Here. This is a blood-debt I pay every time I pass this place. A name and a wound, and the land heals a little. It's a slow process, but nothing else can help, Soma. This is work for a knight-mage, not a healer.”

She does feel the soothing energy of the rock, the way it's seeping slowly into the land. But, “A name?”

“A name of a person who died here,” Aarya says quietly.

Then Soma realises that the surface is carved with characters, with god-characters imbued with power. And when she looks up, around, she can see thousands of neat lines of characters, thousands of names, thousands of bodies, and suddenly, she feels sick. “What—what happened here?”

“Our armies attempted to retreat into the forest,” Aarya says, and now Soma isn't imagining the pain in her voice, “But they were outflanked. They tried to retreat up the rock, but someone set a fire, and you know fire. As long as it doesn't touch the land—well, Lilavati had her own mages.” She closes her eyes for a brief moment. “If I was there, I could have stopped it. If any of the Yodhas were there, they could have. But they had orders to scatter and flee, and not to stay with main body, and I had orders to take the Queen to Rohana, and so I was not there.” She's quiet for a long, long moment in which Soma doesn't dare to move. “The fire scorched the land, but the deaths, most of them, were by the swords of the invaders. They herded our army to one place and killed almost every soldier. We heard the turmoil of the land, but did not know what happened until months past, for the news reached us only after passing through many mouths.” But then she shakes her head sharply, as if clearing it. “I will tell you more, but first. I'm glad you're here, Soma, because this wound does need cleaning.”

 

* * * *

 

Aarya insists on moving a mile away from Balana before she treats the wound, but when she finally uncovers it, it's not as bad as Soma had feared. Stretching across her arm, yes, but it does not seem to be a deep cut, and washing away the layer of dirt that's accumulated around it reveals a wound that, though wide, is shallow.

The dirt worries her, though, and she's careful cleaning it; she's seen the dangers that lingering dirt can cause. It's easy to sink into sluicing water across the wound, grinding cinnamon (suddenly precious now that she knows they have no access to the ports near the City) in her small mortar and mixing it with salt, covering the wound with the paste and binding it tightly with clean cloth (cloth she would have liked to boil, but Aarya insists that a fire is too dangerous while they're near the stream; Lilavati's men apparently watch the waters).

It's only when she finishes tying off the cloth that she realises that the oily-slimy feeling that was the remnant of her plunge into the wounds of Balana has disappeared. And maybe, for Aarya, with her connection to the land so strong, it's even worse.“Aarya, I was trained in spiritual healing too—”

But Aarya shakes her head sharply. “No. No.”

It hurts. It shouldn't, because she hasn't seen Aarya for over fifteen years and the degree of trust required for the healing of the soul is not to be taken lightly, but it still hurts.

Some of that hurt must have shown on her face, because Aarya shakes her head. “I mean no insult, Soma. It's just that some wounds must be borne alone. You understand.”

Soma doesn't understand, but she doesn't say that aloud, only bows her head.

Aarya smiles at her in a conciliatory gesture (and it's strange that that smile sparks something deep inside Soma; it shouldn't, and especially not now). “Thank you, though, for offering.” Then she stands, and extends her uninjured hand to Soma. “Come on. We won't be near another waterway for the next two days. We need to fill our waterskins and bathe.”

Aarya has two bathing-cloths; Soma thinks vaguely that this is a good thing, because Aarya naked would be too much for her. As it is, the wet cloth sticks to Aarya's breasts and stomach, and Soma can see the outline of Aarya's nipples. The goosebumps that rise on her arm have nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the shape of Aarya's body under the cloth as it moves with the practised grace of a warrior. The shifting cloth reveals new skin that's scarred and puckered, but even that makes Soma's mouth dry, for the muscle beneath the skin is corded and thick. Aarya's body is a work of art.

 _Stop_. She tamps down, with difficulty, on the arousal that's sparking within her. It's too much and not enough all at once, and she shivers as she rinses herself in the stream water. It is madness, but she can't stop herself from dreaming.

(She thinks, a few times, that she catches Aarya watching her, but that, too, is madness.)

 

* * * *

 

The walk to the City is silent.

Soma is glad of this; Aarya's pace is almost too fast for her to match, one of her strides covering the distance two of Soma's does.

Soma doesn't say anything, though, because Aarya is also wary and almost frightened, her hand on the pommel of her sword and her eyes darting this way and that. “The Lady cloaks us as she may,” Aarya had explained, “and the Butterfly Lord always watches, but neither of them guide the paths of Lilavati's people, not as long as they're under the protection of their own gods.”

And the tug of the land at her healing-spirit exhausts her. She shudders to think the toll this walk must take on Aarya, because even her mind, less attuned to the ways of the land, can hear the hurts in every step she takes, as an undercurrent of unease.

But she's a healer, and the land knows that, she thinks. At least, the Lady knows. Maybe that's why she's being pulled and tugged at, more insistently with every step.

By the time Aarya tells her that they're stopping for the night, in the shelter of a cave Soma hadn't known existed, she's tired. They've avoided all the villages they could have encountered, eaten only the food from Aarya's pack, and now they don't even light a fire, watching as the sun sets below the trees and darkness descends on the land.

Soma is so exhausted, now, that she's asleep the moment her head hits the sleep-mats they've laid out.

 

* * * *

 

Her dreams are unpleasant.

Or so she thinks. When she wakes up the next morning, there's the barest hint of terror still coursing through her vein, her heart pounding and her palms sweaty.

When she lifts her head, blinking sleep out of her eyes in the pre-dawn light, Aarya's regarding her with her head cocked to one side, a strange look on her face, a look Soma would call lust if she didn't know better. She closes her eyes, stretches, yawns, and the look is gone; Aarya's composed herself into something approaching decorum.

All thoughts of lust are chased away, though, as the sun grows higher in the sky and their path takes them to the City. They're passing close to a roadway, now, not the main wide road but a smaller one, and they have to hide, a few times, from warriors marching in strange armour, and a rage such as Soma has never known before fills her at the thought of these strange warriors traversing _her_ land.

They move, abruptly, away from the road, and Soma's lost all sense of direction except the intuitive knowledge that they're moving closer to the City, closer to home, and there's both dread and excitement thrumming in her veins, a nervous energy that garners annoyed looks from Aarya but which she can't suppress.

Then they pass a copse of trees and round a bend and—

And the City of Anuradha comes into view.

Not her City, though, is the first thought that flies through Soma's mind, followed by dismay.

For the acre of forest, not the dry brambled kind that's common in the Country of Kings but a grown forest of lush green, is gone, and in its place is a ring of bare, dry land around the City. The land prevents any kind of covert approach, and the wall around the City is higher and uglier, spikes set on it and grey, as far as Soma can see, not the pure white that shone in the sun. The golden top of the great white stupa that towers under the rock overhang has been knocked off, and it looks bare, abandoned.

But what hurts most, what makes her gasp out loud, is the standard that flies from the spire of the palace. Not the proud lion against the splash of white any longer, but a red eagle framed by black, and that, in the end, is what makes her choke out a broken “Oh” and turn to Aarya, burying her face, by instinct, in her neck.

Aarya's arms come up around her, but they're stiff, as if unused to comforting. Soma doesn't care, though. All she wants is to not look at what her city has become in the years she was gone, to ignore the combined weight of the darkness of Balana and the utter ruination of the City.

And it is as a distraction that she reaches up and kisses Aarya, desperate and hard and all sorrow and anger. Aarya kisses back, which is possibly the biggest shock of the past few days. She's never been kissed like Aarya is kissing her, both tender and fierce at once. It stirs a memory, from fifteen years ago, of a goodbye brushed upon her cheek and tender hands trailing her cheek, a promise that had not been fulfilled.

Until now.

Aarya breaks the kiss only to trail a tender hand against Soma's cheek. “We'll take the City back,” she says, and Soma realises with sudden, fierce joy that the promise is not an empty one, but has the weight of knowledge behind it.

What knowledge, Soma doesn't yet know, but she will find out. Somehow.

 

* * * *

 

It takes an hour for Soma to realise that, though they're still walking, she doesn't know what their destination is, now. “Where are we going?” She's loath to break the silence that had descended between them, calm and settled, and Aarya's hand brushing hers an occasional jolt of lightning to break the stillness. But the City is gone, taken, and they have nowhere to go, now, and Soma needs—she can't not know. Not now, not like this.

Aarya's stride, though, is certain. She knows where she's going, and the answer gives proof to what Soma's deduced. “The Queen is in Rohana. I have some tasks I must fulfil, but I also have a message to take to the Queen. I'm taking you to her.”

Which sounds very certain, but Soma is confused. It would be easier to leave her at a smaller hamlet to find her own way to a healing-house. (She carefully doesn't think of the kiss; Aarya would not be guided by that kind of sentiment, that much she's sure of.) “You shouldn't. I'd be of better use here, I'm sure, or at a healing-house nearby.”

Aarya shakes her head. “We're going to need a healer, soon, a healer as strong as you are. Lilavati killed most of the palace healers, and while the people Anula has now are adequate, they will not serve the needs we'll be seeing soon.” And there is that grim knowledge again, not foresight but some information Soma does not know, that has not been shared with her. “And if Lilavati hears a whisper of your return, don't doubt that you'll be hunted and found and killed. Any healer who can listen to the land is a danger to her rule.”

That Soma understands. She still doesn't know how she managed to get the Queen's permission to study with Jeevaka, when the Queen knew her so little.

When Soma voices this thought, Aarya smiles, again. Soma is beginning to fall a little in love with Aarya's smiles, as sudden and bright as they are. “I convinced her, Soma. She trusted me, and I trusted—trust—you.”

“We didn't know each other _that_ well.” A thought that maybe shouldn't have been voiced, maybe, and suddenly she's aware that if Aarya stops trusting her, if she gives Aarya cause to stop trusting her, she will be alone in enemy territory, but she has spoken, and she can't take it back. “Unless—you have your means, I'm sure.”

Aarya—Aarya actually takes Soma's hand, now, and there's a heat to her palm that's almost otherworldly. “I do have means that I used to see if you were involved in anything illicit, but Soma, you could never betray my Queen. I knew that the moment I saw you. Your mind—I don't have the words to explain, but your loyalty is clear even now, and your song is loud and strong. It's beautiful, and it's beauty that could never be imitated.”

Soma can feel her cheeks warming, and she knows she's too dark for the blush to show, but she's still embarrassed. Aarya's words are too much; she feels naked, exposed, as if someone is poking at parts of her she never knew existed. It's the strangest and most effusive compliment anyone has ever paid her, and, looking at Aarya, she has to smile.

Aarya's answering laugh smooths out lines on her face, and the light streaming through the trees catches the brown of her eyes so it sparkles gold as she laughs, and it's laughter delighting in whatever she sees in Soma, Soma knows, and the vulnerability grows into a fragile joy.

Aarya is still laughing as she brings Soma's hand up to her mouth and kisses each knuckle, and suddenly the joy becomes a frisson of heat deep in her stomach.

And suddenly, she's hopeful again, the despair she hadn't even known was weighing her down gone.

 

* * * *

 

A day and a half of walking (and a stop by a stream to fill their water-skins, bathe, and splash each other) later, when the sun is midway through its journey across the sky, they come upon a village.

Soma expects that they will veer past it, move around the huts and find a place to shelter for the night. Aarya is skilled at living off the land; there is no necessity they lack, and no reason for stopping.

Apparently, though, they have other plans. Aarya moves past the forest-fields where the villagers have planted vegetables to the village themselves. Soma's inquisitive look is waved off, and the easiness of the past day is gone, the sharp focus Soma had first encountered back in place.

And then she comes to a collection of huts, and steps out where she can be seen, and a man steps out of the huts, almost as if they practised the timing beforehand.

Soma stifles her instinct to cry out and drag Aarya back to safety. She knows what she's doing (or so Soma hopes).

The man comes to meet them. He's holding himself stiffly, darting wary glances at Soma, and the first words that come out of his mouth are “Who is this?”

“My companion,” Aarya says. “She can be trusted.” Then, “The horns will sound soon, Jinadasa. Are you ready?”

 _Horns?_ The horns only sound at a royal death, or when a ruler rides out to war, and Aarya has no way to predict the former.

The man, too, startles. “So soon?”

“Your weapons are ready?” Aarya is hard, unyielding in the face of his shock.

“Aarya, what—”

Aarya doesn't even turn to face her. “Soma. I'll explain later.” The way she holds herself makes it clear that no more interruptions will be tolerated.

Soma shuts her mouth; one of the first things Jeevaka taught her was to listen to someone who has, in that moment, a clearer idea of the situation than she does. (And she doesn't want to be sent away. This is _interesting_.)

The man, Jinadasa Aarya had said, is nodding. “Yes, yes, everything is ready. We're ready, and we'll send the children to safety as soon as we hear something, and everyone who can't fight.” He's rabbity, nervous. Even Soma can see the way he's moving, vibrating, unable to stay still.

Aarya can see that too, apparently, because her face softens. “The Queen does not demand unwilling obedience, Jinadasa. Anyone who wishes to seek safety is free to do so.”

But Jinadasa shakes his head. “There's not a single person among us who remembers life before Lilavati who wouldn't fight. The land's been without a voice for too long, and our crops are suffering.”

“That does not mean you need to fight,” Aarya says, but Soma can see she's speaking for the necessity of saying something, not because she believes what she's actually saying.

Jinadasa frowns at her. “We _will_ fight.”

Aarya bows her head. “I don't doubt it.”  
  


 

* * * *

 

Soma thinks they'll move out after that, back to the wild (and she won't admit it, but she almost longs for the safety that anonymity provides). Instead, Aarya beckons to her to go farther into the village.

Almost immediately, they're swarmed by children. Young children, maybe five or six years old, some younger, all clamouring for Aarya. Under Soma's astonished eyes, Aarya—transforms, softens. She sits in the dust and allows the children to climb all over her, a baby who can't be more than a few cycles nestled in the crook of her arm. She lets them tug her hair and armour and laughs at them and giggles with them and calls them by pet names. It's obvious they're all familiar with each other, and as Soma watches, something like fondness crawls its way into her chest. It's a side of Aarya she'd only ever seen once before, when their paths had crossed long ago and she'd seen the girl, barely a woman then, cradling a young puppy and whispering sweet nothings to it. (And maybe it's strange that she's still remembering that incident, but it's Aarya.)

Even Aarya isn't enough to distract her trained eye from wandering, though. Some of the children's bellies are distended with hunger, and more worryingly, there are sores and hives covering their skin. Things that can be easily treated, some of them, and when she turns to Aarya to ask her whether she can see to the children, Aarya's already nodding at her. “Go on, Soma.”

Soma doesn't need any further instruction. She sinks into her work, and as she works with the children more people come up, babies in their parents' arms and toddlers and older children and old men and women, and, later, the working-age adults too.

It's past sundown by the time she's finished working, and she only realises she's numb with exhaustion when Aarya gently ushers the last of her patients away and prises her mortar and pestle from her hands, where she'd been about to grind more paste for wounds. “Come, Soma. It's time to sleep.”

They lay their mats out on the floor of a hut Jinadasa shows them, and there's straw to stretch them out on, a luxury Soma has become unused to in the short time she's been on the run, and cushions. There are _cushions_ , threadbare and ragged though they may be, clean cushions, luxuries she hasn't seen since she left Jeevaka's house in Jambudeepa months ago.

She collapses onto the mat with a sigh, and realises that Aarya hadn't told her why they came to the village only as she drifts off to sleep.

 

* * * *

 

Aarya makes them take their leave the next day.

Soma is unhappy about it—there's so much to do, so many people in that village alone who needs help—but she doesn't say anything, because Aarya's mouth has tightened around the corners even as she bends to kiss one of the children, and her eyes are darting this way and that, eager to be gone.

“There will always be more people,” Aarya says heavily, once they're alone again, carting their newly-restocked packs with them. “The next village we go to, and the next. As long as Lilavati is here, there will be more people who need your help. And even after, the wounds of this war will not easily be healed.”

Soma bites her lip. She can't make Aarya understand the frustration she feels, the knowledge that her learning is being wasted. She knows, in her heart, that there will be use for her in the Queen's court, that she can help more there than she can here, but she still wants to turn back and help. There are still so many she could do nothing for in that village, lacking the proper herbs and tools. The next village, too—

Wait. “The next village, Aarya?”

Soma hears Aarya sigh audibly. “Yes. I told you—there are some tasks I need to carry out.”

“Tasks.” Soma knows her voice comes out flat. Aarya doesn't owe her anything—in truth, Soma owes Aarya more than she can ever repay—but it still stings. Even though it shouldn't sting, even though she knows (thinks) Aarya is carrying out the Queen's commission and likely has been sworn to secrecy. “What tasks involve gathering arms from village to village, Aarya?”

Aarya turns to face Soma, now, draws to a stop. Soma is forced to halt, too, so that she doesn't stumble into Aarya, and Aarya takes Soma's hand. “An errand of war, to gather knowledge and mobilize our people.”

“The Queen's.”

Aarya shakes her head, and there's a glimmer of strange anger, now, in her eyes. “No, mine. The Queen does not know of this.”

Soma can't help it; she snatches her hands away from Aarya's, puts a foot of space between them.

There is naked hurt on Aarya's face, now, more emotion than she's ever show Soma before. “ _Soma_. I do not speak of treason.”

“It seems that way,” Soma says. She doesn't mean it, not truly—Aarya could never commit treason—but she needs to see Aarya's reaction.

Aarya flinches. “I—I suppose I should tell you what I have been doing. From the beginning.”

“Yes.” Soma crosses her arms. “Yes, you should.”

“I—” Aarya swallows. “Forgive me. I have never truly talked of this to anyone before. I never cared—” She stops, but Soma hears the rest anyway: _I never cared enough for anyone to tell them_. And she can't help it; she moves closer to Aarya, lets her shoulder brush Aarya's in some form of comfort.

Aarya seems to take some strength from that, for she takes a breath, and goes on. “I...when we first went to Rohana, I was—unsteady. The land was screaming at me, and I couldn't—I was young. I had seen battle only as we were fleeing from the Invaders, and I could hear the Lady's lament after Balana even from Rohana. And Anula couldn't.” She stops, clenches her fist for a moment. “You know the royal line has no link to the land?”

Soma nods. It's a safeguard, to prevent the ruler from being torn between her land and her people, to prevent a king or queen whose mind is not wholly intact from taking the throne. Anula must always chose the needs of her people, must not hear the land's demans The burden of listening to the land, of being the one to whom the land calls, is that of the Queen's First. And oh. It's a sudden realisation. It's _Aarya's_ burden.

Aarya is continuing, in a voice that's still strong and clear, “I said some things—I fought with Anula. We reconciled, later, but that fight drove me out of the palace looking for ways to defeat Lilavati. I attacked her forces as best as I could, but there is only so much damage a person can do. So I learned other ways to fight, to make sure our people could still fight. I armed villages as best I could, taught them and told them how to build defences and stage a rebellion, as best I could. I don't know if it's enough, but I have to try.”

The deluge of information has Soma blinking at Aarya as she tries to absorb the story.

“Anula doesn't want to fight,” Aarya adds. “Lilavati is not a bad ruler, she says, and I do understand that, she's not, but Lilavati's people run wild. I have seen what they do. I could never convince her to attack, but now—I have information that means we either attack or are destroyed.”

Soma—Soma doesn't quite know what to make of that. It's too Court for her to understand properly, and all she can imagine is Aarya, on her lone quest for fourteen long years, listening to the tug of the land and hoping it wouldn't slowly drive her mad. Hoping, Soma thinks, that she wouldn't have to choose between the land and her queen.

“I should have told you earlier, Soma,” Aarya says quietly, startling Soma out of her thoughts. “Forgive me. I was putting you at risk even travelling with me, and I should not have done that.”

Soma isn't angry, though. Glad that Aarya has told her, terrified, but not angry. Slowly, deliberately, she takes Aarya's hand, traces the shape of the muscle and rubs rough calluses, feeling Aarya shiver.

“I'll deliver you to the Queen, and she will want to talk to you,” Aarya says, and she is, apparently, oblivious to Soma's efforts to convey her meaning. “But you don't need—I dragged you into this, but you don't need to fight, if you don't want to.”

“I want to,” Soma says simply, and, because she can, she kisses Aarya. “I want to, because this is my people and my land and I will always, always protect Hela as best as I can. And I want to, because I'm a healer, and you will need healers, as you said. And I want to, Aarya, because where you go, I will always follow.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Then Aarya and Soma went together to the palace of Anula Queen-in-Exile and gave to her the knowledge of the weakness of Lilavati the Invader and her people of Lilavati's plans to take Rohana after the next monsoon while the South is laid low by floods, knowledge that Aarya won by blood and sweat and tears. And Aarya placed at the feet of Anula the death and destruction wrought by Lilavati and her people, and the toll the taking of the City had cost the land.

And Anula arose from her throne, and said: “So be it. We will fight.”

And so the armies of the Queen of Hela arose from their exile in Rohana and marched through the land, going unhindered even to the border of the Country of the Kings. And chief among then was Aarya the Queen's First, at whose every step the lands of Tambapanni sang. And she gathered to her a great force of the common people who revolted against the rule of the Invaders, a groundswell of support nurtured in the long years following the Queen's exile by Aarya herself with great secrecy and hardship. And for the protection of the Queen she gathered the Ten Great Yodhas of whom she was the marshal, and who by the Queen's order had scattered and fled when the City of Anuradha had fallen but now marched again under one banner.

The armies of the Queen marched through the Country of the Kings and the people of Lilavati the Invader fled before the might of the South, and of the North. For Queen Anula was wise, and in her years of exile had called on the kings and queens of Bharatha with whom she had pacts. And they came to her aid from the North even as she and her armies marched from the South, and together they trapped the warriors of Lilavati between them.

But Anula wished to avoid bloodshed, for she was a Queen of peacetime and loathed war. And so she challenged Lilavati to single combat, so that whosoever dealt the other a mortal wound would be the ruler of the Heladvipa.

So they strode forth, Anula Queen in the City of Anuradha-in-Exile and Lilavati the Invader. And each was arrayed in the finest armour of their armies, and their weapons glittered in the sun and could slice through rock, so sharp they were. And they were anointed with oils and shaved and bathed, and then they strode to the battlefield.

Bards have written songs of the battle of the Invader and the Queen, but here it need only be said that though both fought with great grace and power, it was Anula who was victorious, with a killing-blow to the stomach that brought Lilavati to her knees in surrender. And because Anula was merciful, she did not allow a slow death, but dealt another blow through her heart.

But the forces of the Invader were treacherous, and as she turned and raised her hand in victory, shining as a warrior from the old tales in the sunlight, an arrow struck her from behind and she was felled.

There was chaos.

For Anula's army was enraged, and sprung forward, ready to burn the army of the Invader to the ground. In murdering a queen beyond the laws of combat, they had brought the vengeance of the gods down on themselves, and the armies of Hela were ready to deliver it.

But in the midst of the rising tide of men stood Aarya the warrior, and cried, “Stop.” For she remembered Balana and the massacre the Invaders dealt on the army of the Hela, and remembered the weeping of the land at the blood and despair. And because she was Queen's First and was of unmatched power in listening to the voice of the land, the echoes of that devastation still ran through her.

And so she halted the armies with a word.

And the Queen, who could barely draw breath, was taken into the care of the healer Soma, and though she was beyond mortal help, Soma prolonged, by the Queen's request, her life as she was able to by the medicines learned from Jeevaka. And the Queen marched the fifty miles to the City of Anuradha, and stepped foot again in that city that she loved. And she lived long enough to crown her son king.

Then Aarya and Soma took her into the forest, to Balana, and it is said the Lady of the Rock herself set the funeral pyre ablaze. And so it was that Balana was cleansed, for the land around it became the crematorium of the Queen herself, and in the sacrifice of the Queen the indignities of the past were washed away. And from that day on there grew lush grass and the small white star-flowers that the Queen, in her life, loved so well, and the Memorial Stone which Aarya made was crowned with green vines.

And the warrior Aarya and the healer Soma lived their life in the great City of Anuradha, restored to its former glory by Mahasen son of Anula and Kirthi his First Minister.

And as long as Aarya drew breath and Soma stood by her, the city was safe from foes, and the Heladvipa prospered long after their lifespan, protected still by their aegis. And so it came to be when Kalinga of the Magha came to attack Heladvipa, thinking it easy plunder, he was driven away after one hundred nights and ninety nine days.

But the story of the Siege of Kalinga, listener, is for another time. For the records of Soma and Aarya end here.

Some say that Aarya died first and Soma followed her to sleep, felled by her own hand. Others say they died together, in their sleep. And yet others whisper that they slipped out in the night to the embrace of the land and still haunt the forests outside the City.

But all the stories agree on this one truth: whatever end they faced, they faced together.


End file.
